Falling Through Fate: A Story of Leia RotS ANH AU
by MissMellissa
Summary: Something goes wrong on the way to Alderaan. A young Leia finds herself falling through the hands of fate and into a destiny far different than that of a princess and yet very much the same.
1. Prologue: The Fall

**Era:** between RotS and ANH  
**Disclaimer:** Star Wars and all characters used belong to their respective creators (namely, not me).  
The Hag, Celessare, and the Syve are my own creations.  
**Notes:** I wrote this a while back, but never put it up here, I have been editing it recently and thought, why not? I'll put it up and see how it does.

I originally put this up on the force . net not to long ago, I have edited it a little since.

**Summary:** Something goes wrong on the way to Alderaan. A young Leia finds herself falling through the hands of fate and into a destiny far different than that of a princess and yet very much the same.

**Falling Through Fate: A Story of Leia**

**Prologue: The Fall **

_The attack came out of nowhere. Imperial ships decimated our small transport, a ship chosen to be inconspicuous and not for its weapons or defense capabilities. Their fighters swarming us as soon as we dropped out of hyperspace over a small planet called Celessare. We were outnumbered and outgunned, the ship was going down and there was nothing I could do to stop it as the girl-child in my arms screamed and screamed and screamed. No help would come for us, traitors that we were. Our only hope was the escape pods. _

_There was little I could do to calm the child, the baby, in my arms. A little girl I had only just begun the call daughter. She did not calm even as we were flung from the ship, even as our escape pod hurtled through space and the battle shrank behind us._

_We were falling. _

_We were falling to _Fast.

_I made sure she was securely strapped into the infant pod before checking my own webbing. Her wailing only grew louder and louder the closer we came to the ground and dread clenched at my heart._

I am going to fail, _I thought._

_I hoped I was wrong, even as our escape pod drove into the ground and I heard the tearing of webbing and snapping of bones. Even as I smelled the pungent scent of burning and tried to shield the girl with my body that would not move fast enough. I hoped. _

Hope, she is my hope, our hope.

_My last thoughts went to my wife, _I'm sorry, _I told her though I knew she could not hear._

_And then my body failed and there was nothing more to remember. _

~*~*~*~

Darth Vader stood on the bridge of the newest technological wonder, the Imperial Star Destroyer, the _Imperial Pride_ and stared out the viewport at the scattered remains of the nameless transport.

_Foolish of him the think he could escape the Emperor's justice by taking such a backwater way home as this,_ Vader thought.

Celessare was a long ways away from Alderaan.

_Foolish of him to leave his wife unprotected. _

Vader turned away from the viewport, watching with mild interest as the crew scurried about, he wondered if they knew who they had just killed. He wondered if he should tell them.

He wondered if they even cared.

He supposed the smarter ones would figure it out when the news of Bail Organa's disappearance spread throughout the galaxy.

_Foolish. _

~*~*~*~

The borderlands of The Syve echoed with the crashes of thunder and lightning lit the blue-black sky with its electric glow. What was one more crash? What was one more flash of unnatural light to disturb the sleep of the lone human inhabitant of the Borderlands? It was nothing, it should have been nothing, but it woke one old woman as surely as a crash in the dead of silence would have. She lay in bed, pale green eyes wide open as the laughter of the Fates drowned out even the sounds of the wild night, and the heavy weight of a stranger's death settled like a lead blanket over the old woman's heart.

~*~*~*~

In the heart of the Alderaanian Palace, Breha Organa woke in a cold sweat, her dreams, nightmares so sharp in sleep, were maddeningly hazy now that she was awake. She remembered only the growing horror of falling and failure, the acrid smell of smoke and smoldering flesh and then the sound of her beloved's voice, haunting and pained.

_I'm sorry._


	2. The Hag

**The Hag: **

Celessare's blue-grey morning sky dawned in the wake of a violent thunderstorm. The sun had only just begun to dry out the saturated earth as the people of Syve Spaceport, more commonly called simply The Port, groaned awake, rolling reluctantly out of bed after a restless night of little sleep. Unease clung to The Port like the heavy early morning fog that rolled across the wet ground. Those with more superstitious minds whispered of magic and trouble. Even the sensible minds, those that had a firm belief in the sciences, could not help but glance nervously to the east, where the dark smudge of The Syve, the cursed forest for which The Port was initially named, lined the horizon. A few people muttered of sighting a streak of fire crash into The Syve. Some imagined that through rain-streaked Plexiglas windows and cloud darkened skies, that they had seen the battle that had taken place far above the highest Port rooftop. When the Imperials landed in their Port, demanding information, accommodations, subservience, they obediently scurried to do as they were bid, head bowed and no voices rising in protest of the invasion. But in the privacy of their homes and the closed circle of their community, whispered conversations spoken between close neighbors and trusted friends spoke of ill omen and black magic and fate. When the Imperials weren't looking there were glares, glances that said simply _the Empire is not welcome here. _

The Imperial excuse for the intrusion was short and created more questions than it answered. A traitor had been executed above Celessare.

That meant a traitor could be in The Syve, a dark heart to live with the dark magic.

When Imperial troops came down, lead by the Dark Lord himself, looking for survivors of a crashed escape pod, they were told of the fire that crashed in The Syve.

And nothing survived in The Syve or its borderlands.

Nothing except the Hag.

But they didn't tell the Imperials that.

~*~*~*~

The Hag woke before the sun came up, feeling both restless and weighted down. Her limbs were heavy and the grief of the Force battered at the shields around her heart, but the memory of what had happened that night drove her out of her bed and to a window. Her gaze immediately seeking The Syve. As her pale green eyes focused on the dark forest, not even half a kilometer beyond her front door, she felt a sudden and very strong sense of urgency.

Whatever had fallen into The Syve last night was calling to her.

'_Hurry, hurry, hurry…'_

She pulled her warm, waterproof cloak off a peg on the wall and, fastening it over her shoulders, hurried to the front door and stepped outside. She almost immediately wished that she owned a functioning pair of boots as her gnarled bare feet sunk several centimeters into the soft mud. She cursed under her breath and pulled her foot free. Shuffling towards The Syve as fast as her old bones would let her, leaving behind her the stone and mud house she had built a lifetime ago with her husband.

'_Hurry, hurry, hurry…'_

Just beyond her property was the abandoned farmhouse of a family that had braved the borderlands of The Syve and then disappeared, never to be heard from again. Fog rolled along the damp earth and lapped against the farmhouse's crumbling walls, slipping inside through the half open doorway. The Hag slowed as she passed the house, as she always did, and bent her head respectfully in its direction, there was a muffled thud as the rotting door slammed shut and the Hag shuddered and quickened her pace once more. The steady chant of 'hurry, hurry, hurry!' echoing in her ears, battering at the near impenetrable mental shields that she had built to protect her sanity.

The Hag gritted her teeth, hissing "Alright, I'm coming already, hold your blasted tauntauns."

She marched her way across the open fields of the borderlands with single-minded purpose, her bony, bare feet sinking into the soft earth with every step, weeds poked up between her toes and pricked at her ankles as she waded through the mists. The call pulling her forward in its iron grip. She crossed into The Syve without hesitation and her annoyance only grew the closer she came to the source of that morning's pains.

'_Hurry, hurry, hurry…'_

"This had better be an emergency." The Hag muttered to herself as she sloshed through the dense blue-green and brown vegetation of The Syve. As she neared what she knew to be the source of her mental discomfort, she cast a mental net out and began feeling for an exact location. After less than a minute, she found what she sought.

A tiny life.

And almost instantly after, the thin wail of a baby cut through the damp morning air, penetrating her brain as only a baby's cry can.

"Blast and damnation." She hissed. The Hag stopped walking for a moment, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to stare blankly into the distance. There, she had found it. The heart of the trouble.

For that is what this was, a load trouble, dumped on her doorstep.

The Hag sighed, her hard mask of grumpy annoyance disappearing to reveal knowing sadness, "Ah," she murmured to herself, "a child of fate." Without further comment, she continued on her way.

Her destination was a mess. The escape pod was half buried in the dirt, pounded into the unyielding forest floor. Blackened tree limbs were scattered everywhere around the mangled pod and the rains of last night's storm had not put out the fires quickly enough to keep the surrounding vegetation from being burned to the ground.

The Hag did not pause to wonder how anything could have survived the crash. She knew only that something, some_body _had. The shrieking wail coming from inside the pod only confirmed what the Hag could already feel.

She carefully climbed up the mound of pushed up dirt around the pod, slipping only once. To her relief, the hatch of the pod had already twisted off.

She found the girl-child wrapped in the body of a dead man. Most of the man's safety webbing was ripped out of the pod's walls. From the awkward angles of his body, most of his bones were broken and his back was badly burned, a mangled, melted mess of clothing and skin. He had several pieces of jagged metal sticking out of him, his passing had not been an easy one. But the girl-child that he protected suffered only from a few bruises and scrapes that the Hag could see. The old woman felt no deeper pain from the girl-child.

Just extreme distress.

"Alright now, girlie, calm yourself. The Hag is here." The babe wailed louder. "Not a comforting thought for you I think, no, Girl-Child?" The Hag reached into the pod, almost losing her balance as she leaned in, "Ah, my poor old bones, you are going to be the end of me, Girl-Child, you will accomplish what an entire village of torch wielding idiots could not." She cackled at the thought, and the babe's wails faded a bit. Hag disentangled the girl-child from the man's mangled body and safety webbing, holding her close, the Hag half climbed, half slid away from the wrecked pod.

Facing the wreckage, the Hag held the crying girl-child up to her face, "here now, stop that noise, girl. Haven't you caused this old Hag enough headaches this morning?"

The child only cried harder.

The Hag frowned and lowered the girl. It had been a long time since she had comforted her own babes. Gently she rocked and spoke in soothing tones, turning away from the wreckage, needing to put as much space between the girl-child and the dead man as possible. She spoke to the child as she walked.

"What did your poor pretty mother call you, eh?" she cackled, "I'll not give you a name Girl-child. No. A name is a powerful thing, choosing it shall be your burden. A powerful gift I give you, eh, what say you to that, Girl-Child?" She smiled as she realized that the babe's cries had stopped and the Girl-Child had settled quietly in the Hag's bony arms. "A pity that man back there wasn't your father," she sighed, "but fate runs thick in your blood, doesn't it Girl-Child? Your dark father's death would do you little good." The Hag paused mid step, listening, she smiled again. The morning birdsong had returned, the unnatural air of earlier was fading as nature righted itself.

"I suppose I'll have to take care of you now, eh, Girl-Child? Pity I am not as young as I used to be." The Hag laughed then, a laugh that held little joy and much cynicism, "I am old, Girl-Child, and those golden eyes of yours spell trouble, that they do." The Hag looked down at the small body squirming in her arms, her spindly fingers curled tightly around the girl's fragile form, "I suppose I'm already attached to you, aren't I? No good abandoning you now, devious little girlie." She said, but not without some affection.

As they crossed the threshold of the Syve, the Hag laughed, this time with some real humor, "those pansies in the Port are right about one thing, Girl-Child. The Syve brings nothing but trouble."


	3. The Naming

**The Naming: **

"Hag? Is it true that The Syve swallowed three imperial squads whole?" Golden eyes looked up at the Hag, round and inquisitive, set in the slightly plump face of a child, dark brown hair fell in messy mop of curls that framed her face and tumbled down her slender back, it was held out of her eyes by a scrap of brown cloth wound around her forehead. She reached up with small hands to adjust the cloth. The Hag smiled and reached out with a bony hand to help the girl fix the knot in the back.

"Yes, this is so, but it happened many years ago, when you were but a babe. Have the children in the Port been telling you tales again, Girl-Child?"

"They tell me stories," The girl pushed The Hag's hands away and finished the knot herself, "interesting stories," The Girl-Child's voice lowered to a whisper, "they say that you pulled me out of The Syve."

"Do they now? I wouldn't listen too much to what the brats in the Port tell you."

"But it's true, you did pull me out of the Syve," suddenly the Girl-Child's eyes and voice filled with anger, "but, they say I'm unnatural, they have no right to say that! I am not asking that they believe I'm your niece, like you told them, but why must they be so… so closed minded?"

"They have every right to be suspicious, Girl-Child, the Syve is a dark place to those who do not understand it. Indeed, the Syve is not place to be understood. Know this, Girl-Child, to the people of The Port, you will always be odd, suspicious folk that they are. It is their nature."

"That is not fair," Girl-Child pouted, "It is not the way things should be."

"Oh," the Hag laughed, it was not a pleasant sound, and the Girl-Child bristled at the familiar wheezing noise, "and who are you, child, to say how things should be? What will you do to change it, what can you do?"

The Girl-Child, glared, she did not like it when the Hag was right, she _would _change it. She was determined.

"What can you do, Girl-Child?" The Hag said again, "Will you slap poor Lesra in the face again?"

"She was teasing Astralli d'Levrer, she started it, she was pulling the poor girl's braids, I…"

"Hurl rocks at Tovin and his little brat gang-?"

"They were tormenting a Veekat mother and her kits, he had no right to…"

"Without_ touching_ them." The Girl-Child blushed a little at the Hag's implication of magic. "Veekat are rodents, Girl-Child, vermin, the people of the Port will not appreciate you saving them."

"I do not care."

"Do you think talking sass to everyone who does not share your political views will endear them to you? You are quick to anger and quick to strike, Girl-Child, perhaps the Port would be more inclined to like you if you minded your temper, if you did not try to right every wrong."

"The People of the Port don't like _you._" She retorted, nose thrust into the air. Arm folded tightly across her chest.

"And there is another problem all in itself. If you are going to change the galaxy, Girl-Child, do not expect to be liked by all."

The Girl-Child deflated. "I do not like being hated." She said, her voice small. "They do not understand. They do not see what I see."

"And you cannot expect them to, because some people are blind, no matter how much air you waste on explanations."

The Girl-Child was quiet. The Hag could see that she was thinking, planning her next argument. The Hag knew that she was going ask for something now, she knew that now, they had come to the heart of the little girl's distress. "They say its not right that I don't have a name," Girl-Child said slowly, carefully. She looked up at the Hag from under dark lashes, "am I old enough to choose a name yet? Maybe if I had a proper name… If we shared that one thing…"

The Hag looked the Girl-Child over for a few minutes. The child had asked this question constantly for the better part of the past two years. Hag has always ignored her, pretended not to hear But perhaps she was ready. Perhaps. "Your name has always been yours to choose, Girl-Child. As long as you are strong enough to stand by it. Will you stand tall and tell me your name, or shall I call you Girl-Child again?"

"An… Angelis…" Girl-Child said, hesitantly, testing the name.

"Girl-Child." The Hag said, firmly. She stared at the Girl-Child and Girl-Child quaked a little under the pale green gaze.

"Evangeline?" She had not meant the name to come out as a question.

"Girl-Child." The Hag voice was unyielding.

"Lazeli." She listed, but her voice held no power.

"With conviction, Girl-Child."

She did not know what to say, what to choose, there were too many choices, too many names that she had toyed with and discarded since the first time she had been to the Port, since the first taunts that had been thrown at her. Since she had first learned the meaning of the words 'unnatural' and 'changeling.'

"Jaina." She chose, uncertainly.

"I feel that name belongs to another, Girl-Child. You will gift it to another." The Girl-Child looked up at the Hag in annoyance.

"I do not know yet," she admitted. Girl-Child looked down at her toes, "I am unnatural as they say."

"No." The Hag said, her voice matter-of-fact, "you are special. A bright light of hope in the dimness of the Syve." Her voice held a rare amount of affection in it. Caring, perhaps.

"A light." Girl-Child echoed, "a light, Luce…Luca…Luci… Luci-a, Lucia."

"Are you sure, Girl-Child, a name is a powerful thing, sometimes it is better not to have one."

"A name gives a person definition, even you had a name once."

"This is true." The Hag smiled then, not entirely a reassuring or warm expression, "A Naboo name, eh, Girl-Child?" The Hag teased her young ward.

"Yes…" the Girl-Child paused, her expression growing distant, unfocused, "like my mother's."

"And what do you know of your mother?"

"Nothing… Nothing, but of this I am certain. Certain as tomorrow's sunrise."

The Hag smiled, accepting her answer. "But you are not of Naboo, you are of Celessare."

"Not always," Girl-Child's golden eyes sought the pale green eyes of the Hag, narrowing as her small mouth set in a determined line, "My parents are not of Celessare, you told me so."

The Hag ceased scrubbing her own pot and leveled her now stern gaze at the girl-child, capturing the girl-child's golden eyes wither her own, "You are not your parents, you would be wise to remember that.

"Celessare has adopted you as it did me, as it did every man, woman, and child living in The Port. What you were when you got here makes little difference. The question is, what are you now?"

The Girl-Child dropped her gaze, her eyes unfocused, she stared past the pot in her hands, making slow, absentminded circles with her scrubber. Her thin, elegant eyebrows drew together and her small nose wrinkled in thought, she bit her lip, "Lucia a'Celessare, then." Nodding solemnly, she turned her eyes to her pot and scrubbed at it viciously.

"Ah, 'Light of Celessare,' a good name for you." The warmth was back in the Hag's face and voice as she reached out and plucked the pot from the Girl-Child's hands, "You'll wear a hole in the bottom of this, if you don't stop, Girl-Child."

"It's _Lucia_." The Girl-Child insisted, relinquishing the pot as the last of the tension between them melted away.

"Well then, Lucia a'Celessare, get another pot! These old bones of mine are aching and I want to go to bed."

"Yes, Hag!" Lucia could not help grinning as she attacked the remaining dishes.

She had a name.


	4. The Hands of Fate

**The Hands of Fate: **

It was the voice of a woman, calling to her. No, not to her, the woman was calling her

someone else's name.

"Leee-iah" it whispered in her ear. "Leii-ahhh, Leiaahhh, Leia, Leia, Leia." The woman's voice would not stop.

"Quiet." Lucia hissed.

"Leia." The voice insisted

"No! Be quiet! Please, please leave me alone."

"Leia! Leia! LEIA!"

"I say go away!"

"Daughter…" the voice whispered in her ear one more time, pleading and desperate.

Daughter, daughter, daughter… the strangely foreign word echoed in Luica's ears.

"No, wait! Please, I don't understand…" but the voice was gone, in its place rose a memory, an old memory, faded and blurred, pulled by the owner of the voice from the depths of Lucia's mind.

_The Hag's arms around her fragile body and a question, "What did your poor, pretty mother name you, eh?"_

Lucia sat strait up in bed, her arms reaching out, fingers grasping at air as she cried out, still half asleep and in the grips of her dream, "Mother, wait!"

When Lucia slept, she dreamt. She dreamt of faces she could not make out and names that she could not remember. The Hag told her that things would become clear with time, but Lucia had the ever increasing feeling that there was no time to spare, that things were happening faster and faster the longer she waited for the fog of her future to clear.

With every dream she grew more and more restless. More and more sure that she was not supposed to be _there _anymore. She packed an unpacked her meager belongings, pacing the house until the Hag kicked her out to 'go wear a hole in somebody else's floor.' She wandered the Borderlands, lingering on the edge of the Syve, but never daring enter. She had never been in those dark woods alone, never since her rather spectacular entrance into this world as a babe. She wandered, and as her feet carried her in every direction, she tried to bring the words from her dreams into clarity. She knew only that they featured her mother and a faceless boy. Sometimes there were others well.

A dark man. The connection she felt to him terrified her.

An old man. He reminded her of the Hag. Kinder, but no less cryptic.

And a rouge. She did not like him. He was annoying.

But she could not remember the words.

~*~*~*~

Her world changed the night of the _Syveran. _It is a holiday of superstition, a night when children dress up and tell ghost stories. A night of wild pranks and contrived terror. A night in worship of the Syve and all it stands for.

Lucia has never dressed in a silly children's costume or joined the Ports festivities. She has never played a prank with other children and she had always considered their actions somewhat beneath her. 'Serious child' the Hag calls her. 'Stick in the mud' Lesra, the Port's local beauty, had said, her nose in the air, her hips swaying playfully at a particularly good looking boy. Travys is his name, Lucia remembers. Travys who flirts with her and then laughs at her embarrassment. Travys who has a black eye the next day.

"Control your temper." The Hag tells her. "Let your anger go. It does not help you. You see? Now you have one more enemy."

The next boy who flirts at her, she offers a cool smile and a gentle incline of her head to the side. She is proud that she walked away.

She had wanted to slap him. She did not like being teased.

This Syveran is the same. Far off in the distance, the Port is alight with its festival. She is up late with the Hag. Meditating, the Hag calls it. Tonight is the best night for it. "This night, the Syve speaks to us." Hag says.

The Hag is right, there is something. Something that nags at Lucia's thoughts. She goes to bed early that night. And as she sleeps, she dreams, and she remembers.

In her dreams, she is in the Forest, deep in the heart of the Syve, she knows this as she knows her mother hails from a world called Naboo. It is quiet, and light seeps in from the thick canopy overhead, and as quickly as she is there, she is in another forest, this one is alien, in the distance to her left there is a temple. She cannot see it, but she know it is there. Far above her head there is a battle, far larger than the one that brought her to Celessare. She knows this, as she knows the temple's location.

Then she is in the temple. Computer consoles are alight with moving red and blue dots, maps and plans. People buzz around her, moving with purpose, there is a mission to be done. For once she is comfortable in a crowd. She is sad, friends are gone. One by one they are gone.

Time moves again and she is in a box, metal walls hold her in and she is terrified. _"Be strong daughter." _A voice whispers to her.

And then another voice, real and solid.

A blond boy in white armor.

"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."

And then she woke.

~*~*~*~

"Something has landed in the Syve." The Hag tells her even as Lucia shakes the last remnants of sleep away. Her dream lingers with her. Solidifying in her mind. She closes her eyes to be sure she will remember and then turns to the Hag.

"I will go check it out." She says firmly. This is right, she feels it.

"You will not go alone." Lucia senses that this is alright and nods her head. She rushes to dress and breaks off a piece of bread to take with her.

"And a piece for me as well," the Hag says with a slightly mischievous smile.

~*~*~*~

The Syve is not a small place, but they find the disturbance easily enough. _Come, come, come. _The Syve calls them, _this way._

What they find is not what Lucia expects at all. She does not know what she thought, but she knows that this is not it.

A woman with red hair and a pretty face lay in the dirt, debris and wreckage are strewn around her and the deflated cloth of a parachute extends from her back. Lucia knows that if she and the Hag were to search further on, there would be more twisted metal to be found. The unknown woman is small, but even so she is taller than Lucia.

The Hag slowly kneels beside her, and Lucia feels guilty, the Hag is old, constantly complaining of pain in her knees, she should not be kneeling. "She is not badly injured. A miracle some of this did not hit her on the way down." The Hags says. "A blow to the head, I think." Hag turns to Lucia. "Could you lift her?"

Lucia looks at the Hag as if she has grown an extra limb. "I am not weak, but I could not drag her through the Syve without further injury to her."

"You can throw stones without touching them, girl. That is not what I meant. Can you _lift _her?" Hag asks again.

Lucia flushes in embarrassment. "I have never tried with something so big before."

"her life depends on you, child, hop to it." The Hag says briskly, with a confidence that Lucia cannot bring herself to feel.

"I will try," she tells the Hag. The Hag snorts at her.

"You will fail if you merely try, girl. Do it. Now." It is a demand. A command. And Lucia moves to obey. She does not think about it, if she does, she knows that the impossibility will overwhelm her.

It is a long trip back to the Hag's stone house. The unknown woman is given Lucia's bed and exhausted as Lucia is, she cannot sleep. No sleep until the woman awakens. The Hag tells her. The Hag tends to the woman's wounds while Lucia watches. And then they wait.

~*~*~*~

The woman has a name. She is called Bria Tharen. Bria does not trust them and Lucia knows only that she herself trusts the Hag. She does not know what she feels for this woman who has stolen her bed, she feels that she does not, _not _trust Bria, she does not know if she feels anything towards the stranger at all, at this point. But Lucia is curious, and she want to know about this woman. She wants to know her purpose and what brought her here. She wants to know if it has anything to do with herself. She can feel it. Her own approaching fate, her future. 

Bria heals well over the next weeks. She is impatient to leave. She has important business. She tells them. Vital. Lives are in the balance. She says, and Lucia is excited. This is an adventure, this is a chance to change things, she feels.

Bria has come to trust them, a little, at least. Lucia thinks that she a rebel, and she feels that she is right. But she does not ask. When she tells the Hag of her suspicions, the Hag says simply.

"Is she now? And what are you Lucia, if not a rebel?"

Bria tells Lucia stories of her adventures throughout the galaxy. She speaks of the Empire with obvious hatred and when Lucia can no longer hold it in she says,

"You are a rebel, aren't you? Part of the Alliance."

Bria does not answer her that day, or the next. But on the day that she is to journey to the Port and depart Celessare forever, she unexpectedly gives Lucia a hug and says, "Come with me."

"Why?" asks Lucia, suddenly hesitant and mistrustful of her dreams of leaving. Images of being trapped in a metal walled box overwhelm her and for a moment she is terrified. She catches the Hag's criticizing glance and takes a deep breath, letting go.

"You are…" Bria hesitates, searching for the words she would use to persuade Lucia, "powerful, the Alliance could use a woman of your skill. We do not have many like you… We do not have _any _like you."

"I do not like being used," Lucia says, her voice flat and final, Bria is about to speak again, but Lucia is not finished, "but I want to change things, there is something…not right about the galaxy now. Something is unbalanced and dark, dark like the Syve can sometimes be dark and… and things are moving quickly. I am afraid. But I will not let that hold me back. I will change things, as I am meant to."

The Hag helped Lucia gather what little she owned. Hag did not tell her goodbye, she did not even offer a hug or handshake. "I will see you again." Was all she would say.

And Lucia, at a loss for words settled for a simple "Thank you."

Then they were gone. The Hag's stone cottage far behind them. Imperial troops were in the Port, but such unwanted company was easily avoided and passage off planet was bought from traveling merchant.

The captain was called Devini Starchase. Lucia did not like him.

"No doubt he does some smuggling on the side." Bria commented. Lucia simply nodded and regarded their captain with a wariness she could not quite explain.

This man was dangerous. There was something wrong.

"I do not like this." She tells Bria, worry creasing her brow.

"Not every shady man you see is working for the Empire. Lu," Bria said with the tone of someone who had been from one end of the galaxy to the other, "I don't trust him completely, but we need this ride."

"He will betray us." Lucia said with a sudden feeling of certainty.

"How can you know that?" Bria quirked an eyebrow up, and regarded her with an expression that clearly said, _what experience do you have that outweighs mine? _

"A feeling. I just know." Lucia folded her arms and held Bria's gaze. Steady, unwavering. _Don't lose your temper, _she told herself.

"Look, Lu," Lucia was not sure she liked Bria's nickname for her, "I'm not wasting the only chance we may have to get off this planet before next month on some voodoo hunch of yours. I'm going, you can stay if you want. I'll give you a number to contact if you want to catch some other ride."

"No," Lucia said, "I am meant to leave with you."

"Whatever, witch-girl." She said the name with a smile. Not an insult then, but Lucia could not help feeling annoyed at being dismissed so easily.

~*~*~*~

Bria is uneasy and Lucia's dreams are haunted by a dark shadow and the sound of heavy, unnatural breathing.

Someone is going to die. And soon. The Hag always told Lucia that death is a heavy thing, it weighs down the heart with its sadness, but death is a thing that must be let go, the Hag always told Lucia not to cling. But Lucia was never very good at letting go.

They are picking up another passenger. Their captain tells them. When they stop for refueling and more cargo.

They have bought passage to a planet called Corellia. Bria has explained to her. When they were still in the Port, far away from the ears of the captain and his reptilian copilot, Bria had told her that from Corellia they would find passage to a world called Alderaan. Lucia felt a connection to this name.

"I was going there once." She told Bria. Bria had looked at her in surprise.

"Really? When? I thought you had never been off Celessare."

"When I was a baby. I don't really remember."

"Is this another one of those things that you just know, witch-girl?"

Lucia bristled at being called 'witch-girl' again, but said, "Yes," and the subject was dropped.

~*~*~*~

Their fellow passenger was a man, short, round and balding, travelling with him were two droids that Lucia watched with a curiosity she tried to hide, she did not have much experience with droids, she saw little of them, but for her few trips to the Port each year. She was not exactly inclined towards the mechanical, but something about these beings that moved and spoke like they were alive in the same way she was, intrigued her. The man said to call him Mr. Trillus, but he did not speak often to the odd girl and the dangerous looking woman who were his travelling companions.

Lucia does not trust Mr. Trillus either. He is connected to the captain. She knows this, but does not tell Bria, she does not want to argue again. Not on this ship.

The novelty of space travel having worn off a bit. She contented herself with watching the droids. The golden one reminded her of Astralli d'Levrer, who had grown up into a prissy little thing. Constantly going on about what was proper or not. Lesra teased her about it to no end, but the girl would not be swayed. On that thought, the small, squat one reminded Lucia of Lesra, sassy and blunt, but without the nasty streak. It was like having the two of them here with her. Their bickering near enough to drive her up a wall. She did not know if she liked this bit of familiarity or if she was annoyed by it.

~*~*~*~

As their journey wore on, Lucia noticed Bria growing particularly attached to the Lesra droid. When Lucia commented on this, Bria gave her the look Lucia had come to interpret as _'you say the strangest things' _and then said, "It has a number you know, its name is R2-D2."

"Oh," Lucia had mumbled, "it just reminds me of a girl I knew back home. Her name was Lesra, she was very… sassy."

Bria laughed. "I'm sure Artoo here is flattered, but I bet he'll prefer you call him by his name."

"He?" Lucia arches an eyebrow at her companion as if to say _and you think I'm strange? _

"It feels like a 'he.'" Brie says, defensively.

Lucia only laughs.

~*~*~*~

_Treachery. _Lucia thinks.

The captain is dead, killed by his copilot, the copilot dead as well, a fatal wound from his captain had brought an end to his treachery. It had happened as soon as the Imperial Star Destroyer had come into view. It had happened quickly.

"Tatooine?" Bria had whispered, "Why are we stopping at Tatooine?"

_Greed. _Lucia, had greed to thank that she had survived. The copilot had wanted all the reward for Bria's capture. All or none.

Bria was dying. Mr. Trillus shot her. Well, he shot _at _Lucia.

"She's not part of the bounty," he had said, "We don't need to be toting around extra baggage." He had pointed the blaster at her after Bria had attacked him. The betrayal had been out in the open. The Imperials were here for them, for Bria.

"Cooperate." He had told Bria, "or I shoot."

In the brief moment that Bria's eyes met Lucia's, a decision was made. There would be no cooperating.

And now Bria was dying.

And Mr. Trillus was dead. Brained by a piece of hollow durasteel pipe wielded by Lucia.

Bria was dying. Death was heavy, so very heavy.

"The escape pods. Take the droids with you. They can help you." Bria gasped out. She weakly reached up and yanked something off her neck, "take these," she wheezed, "get them to Alderaan, whatever it takes, deliver them…" she gasped in pain, "deliver them to the hands of Queen Breha _only. _Do you hear? Breha and no other."

"But, what about you?" Lucia had never been one for hysterics, but she was treacherously close to losing control. "I can't do it alone." Her voice coming out in a near wail.

"You have to go _now._" Bria insisted, "Before the tractor beam stops you from launching the escape pod…" She fell back closing her eyes in pain, Lucia began to get up, but Bria's hand shot out, catching her wrist, "_Tatooine._" Her eyes, bright with pain, grew round as an idea formed. "Find General Kenobi on Tatooine, tell him… tell him that he has the high ground."

"What...?"

"Just tell him that, he'll help you. Now go, witch-girl."

~*~*~*~

Lucia was staring at the entrance hatch to the escape pod with mounting dread.

_I'll be shot out of the sky, they'll know I'm in there. They'll know. _She looked at the droids. Beings who imitated being alive like her. Beings that could not be sensed in the same way she could.

_They will be safe. _She felt a familiar certainty settle around her. This was the way it was supposed to be. She could trust them. She knew this.

She tucked Bria's datacard into Artoo's storage slot. Not knowing exactly what to say, she relayed Bria's instructions, hesitantly giving the rebel woman's name in hopes that this General Kenobi would recognize it. She added the odd code phrase, and not quite knowing what she was doing or why, tacked on to the end of her speech,

"Help me, General Kenobi, you are my only hope."

She watched as the hatch sealed the droids into the small metal pod, and had a sudden sense that once upon a time it had been her in there, her and a man whose face she could not remember. The pod was away and only seconds later the Destroyer's tractor beam settled in around the ship.

_I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you. _

Lucia walked out into the main cabin, she stood in the center of the small room, her hands clasped behind her back, Bria's body at her feet. Mr. Tillus was sprawled across the doorway, his ample frame stopping the automatic door from closing though it tried again, and again. From the front of the ship, where the entrance ramp was located she heard boots, stomping a steady military rhythm, coming closer, closer.

And then she heard it, the breathing. The breathing that had haunted her nightmares. The dark man was here. Fate was marching down the corridor.

Closer, closer.

She squeezed her eyes shut, _Hurry, Luke. _

_Let it go, _the Hag's voice came loud and clear, as if she was right there, with her. _Let it go. _

Lucia opened her eye and relaxed her shoulders. She took a breath in and let it out. _No Fear. _

_Hurry, Luke. _

~*~*~*~


End file.
